


laudanum

by mellowly



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Drug Use, Grief/Mourning, Historical References, Kissing, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, Soviet Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-22
Updated: 2018-01-22
Packaged: 2019-03-08 05:42:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13451718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mellowly/pseuds/mellowly
Summary: sometimes, forgetting is all you can do.sometimes, what you need is to remember.(or: how to escape a life in grey.)





	laudanum

**Moscow, november, 1962**

* * *

 

Sometimes, they just need to forget.

  
Long ago, they had it fun, for the high and for bettering sickness.  
Poland tried it against tuberculosis and found himself drifting far away from Paris, the taste of strong laudanum carrying him back home. He craved more.

Lithuania used it first for his wounds. To sleep, in the cold wet nights when everything hurt, it was his friend and ally in a world that forgot about him.  
It didn't make the deportations stop.  
It did stop his heart, once.

 

Then again, addiction was the least of their problems.  
  
And then they were both so busy with rebuilding, their homes and their lives and their bodies and all they _lost_ , the torn-down streets of Warsaw and the missing fathers of Vilnius.  
Poland had laudanum in his cellar that he smuggled into the Union.

 

Sometimes they both need to simply forget.

 

There are nights, now, when Poland cannot close his eyes for the sight of smoke and the sound of screams, and his fear and grief is so palpable it makes Lithuania's heart hurt.  
  
There are nights, now, when Lithuania shuts his ears and refuses to speak, and his phantom pains are overwhelmingly present. Poland cannot take them away.

 

So they drink.

  
  
A toast, says Poland, with death in his eyes, a toast to our good host.  
The jab has lost its potency long ago.  
  
The laudanum has not.

It's nice, the burn, it's bitter but euphoria is sweet, and their linked hands tremble.  
  
The pleasantness of their slow breaths.

Poland doesn't say much. He jokes, occasionally, morbidly and inappropriate. His laughter is the hollow one of a man at the gallows. Mostly he is silent, resting against Lithuania's side as they sit with their backs to the radiator to keep warm. It is so cold in their rooms that Lithuania sees his breath form mist in front of his face.  
Poland breathes it in.

Sometimes they kiss. To take the taste away - or to share it?  
The world is so grey now anyway, so a flash of red pink purple, of cold and kiss-bitten lips is a nice change.  
Poland's weak hands grasp his sweater.

 

Sometimes, when they need to forget, they remember instead.

  
  
Then, Poland cries, silent silent tears on his hollowed cheeks, and Lithuania traces the scar on his chin and holds his thin wrists and doesn't say a word.  
  
Then, Lithuania sobs quietly, hitching desperate breaths into Poland's chest, and Poland cradles his head and strokes his back and doesn't say a word.

 

When it wears off, they dare not sleep in the same bed, even if both their hearts ache for closeness.  
Sometimes they simply do not sleep.  
Who needs it, when you have a high and a lover, whose heart beats alongside your own?

 

Poland still keeps laudanum in his cellar.


End file.
